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It's been awhile since I've been back here, and the experience this time around was a bit disappointing.
We came right on time on Sunday, where we were able to grab a seat for two once we walked in. Not crowded and no wait at all. However, the food trailed out ever so slowly! We managed to order 5 dishes and wanted two more specific ones. We asked a few times and the waitress kept telling us they were coming. We sat for about 15 minutes and kept looking, but the dishes never came out from the kitchen. We ended up leaving and going across the street to one of those grab-and-go dim sum places to get an order of sesame balls, which turned out to be cheaper anyway.
The dimsum here is only a-ok, nothing to praise really, nor to put down. Everything is less salty and less oily, so it is good if one has health conditions and such. Prices were cheap, even on weekends. They also have a promo on weekdays where "sm, md, lg dimsums $2".
The place is big, with a large upstairs if one has a really big group. The patrons were all types of people, rather than exclusively HK/Chinese. That could be a sign, good or bad, up to you. For very busy Clement St and on a weekend even, this place is located close to 19th Ave/Presidio so parking is a bit better.
Recently went here for 270 wedding banquet.
Yeah, it was a little tight upstairs but everyone was seated with a good view of the newlyweds and headtable. (http://www.yelp.com/bi...)
There's a gigantic old school bling'ed out chandelier as well as tv's in corners of the room that played slideshows of the couple which was cool.
Some of the dishes from the banquet included:
a headcheese, roast pork, and seaweed plate
walnut prawns
shark fin soup
peking duck with puffed shrimp chips - (http://www.yelp.com/bi...)
lobster - I ate the head (http://www.yelp.com/bi...)
fried rice
steamed fish
Everyone left full and I'd say everyone enjoyed themselves.
How did we decide to go to Tong Palace ?
Happened to be in the neighborhood, wanted to get Pho' @ Cali Pho' recently taken over the bad place that was there. While the large banners of Cali Pho proclaim "Grand Opening"... it however was closed with some sort of City notice on the door. Then since foraging for food near by .... Dim Sum came to mind.
There is Tong Palace... lets try it:
Service: Hmmmm, 10:30 on a Saturday, prime Dim Sum time.
Service was bad, very bad. Kind of like they go out of their way to be non-responsive and rude. Not expecting a Yank Sing, Koi Palace, Fleur De Lys, Gray Danko class service, but come on, Tong Palace try not to be RUDE.
Ambiance: Probably the wrong word to use, so lets say "environment"
(ooops, that brings to mind toxic wasteland). The wall color "putrid green", large screen TV in the dining area blasting a Chinese channel. Dead fish in the "fresh fish" tanks.
Food: Not very good. Tofu skin w/ meat & veg. stuffing)... tasted like it was made last week, flat noodles w/ shrimp ....bland, the sauce didn't even awaken the taste buds. The shrimp & scallop - just OK, the shrimp & scallion - OK. Spare ribs w/ black beans kinda tasty, got to savor the ONE black bean.
$ 26 for 7 dim-sum dishes.... not a place to ever return to.
I love eating at this restaurant. Plenty of room, food is good, and price is very reasonable.
I love the salt and pepper sparerib and the honey walnut prawns here. Also I love the mango pudding here, I think its better then the dessert place they have around the richmond area.
The dim sum in the morning is pretty good also. We stuffed our face and the bill was very cheap also.
I recommend this place, you would have to at least try it once to judge for yourself.
Went for dim sum on a Wednesday. They have an awesome deal where small, medium, and large dishes are all $2 M-F (excluding weekends and holidays). Pretty traditional Cantonese dim sum. My favorite was definitely the shrimp and scallop steamed dumpling, and the portions were generous! The shrimp and chive dumpling had a little too much chive for my taste but was still quite good. The tofu and shrimp dim sum is better than House of Banquet next door because the dish is steamed, not fried. The only downside is that they don't serve those amazing green tea black sesame mochi balls that House of Banquet has. My Asian parents approved of Tong Palace, so that has to mean something!!
This is my go-to dim sum place! I've been there twice now, and tried all sorts of new dishes that I had never seen before. Yum! It's pretty cheap, not too oily, and tons of variety. Mmm...I feel another dim sum craving coming on :)
We came here after a funeral for lunch...4 tables total. There is just nothing good I can say about this place except the ice cold coke was refreshing. One dish after another arrive, I take one bite and I'm disgusted. At about the 4th out of 8th dish I just gave up! I've eaten at clean, expensive, dirty chinese restaurants and this was just plan awful. It could be the dishes we ordered but it was standard dishes we would order at other places!
When the check arrived so I can pay for all the tables...average price does not equal good food!! =T
Maybe dim sum here is better but don't count on finding me there!
So my mom set up our small wedding dinner here. Service was not as great as it should have been considering we had put down so much money for their "special event" thingy. I barely ate anything that was in the 5-7 course meal. I can't really say much because my parents paid for it, but if you plan to have some kind of banquet here, ...I highly suggest somewhere else.
I just checked out the website now, and it's about the only thing fancy about this place.
their food was not bad at all, just too much to consume in one meal.
Bad food. Bad selection. Bad service.
Ok, the latter is expected, but still.
We came here one Sunday morning, on a quest to check our hypothesis:
- WHEREAS, SF Chinatown is bullshit and a tourist trap. Dim sum is mostly meh and expensive.
- WHEREAS, the Inner Richmond appears to have more Asian focused establishments, shops, restaurants, and bakeries alike.
- THEREFORE, can it not be said that the dim sum in the Richmond should be more legit, cheaper, and tasty?
It seemed pretty likely. So with 3 others in tow I went to check out Tong Palace on Memorial Day. We drove all the way from SOMA, had trouble finding parking on Clement, etc. It was crowded, which is fine. WIthin 15 minutes we were sitting down. And that was the only good part.
There's absolutely no service at this place. The cart service is woefully understaffed and there is only one cart making the rounds in the restaurant at any given time. If you see something you want, it will probably be gone by the time the cart gets to you. The staff were pretty rude (although this might be attributable to my poor Cantonese.)
And plus, nothing is that great, yet it's quite expensive ($45 + tax/tip for 4.) It's the worst of both worlds. HYPOTHESIS DISPROVED.
I give two stars since I at least did not get food poisoning. (That I know of.)
The food is decent for the $2 price. My family likes to eat here occasionally. If you need to eat dim sum on the weekend try heading to Koi Palace or HK Flower Lounge instead.
I'd just like to say one thing to everyone who complains about bad service at Chinese restaurants.. That's just how Chinese restaurants are, kids! If you're in a Chinese restaurant with good service then you are probably either A) at P.F. Changs, or B) Jackie Chan. It just comes with the territory. The better the food, the worse the service. That being said, on to my review.
This is one of the better dim sum places I've tried in the city. During the weekdays every dish is 2 bucks (used to be 1.88 but times are tough these days), and most things are pretty solid. Just don't make the mistake of ordering something from the kitchen, cuz that's where they get you in terms of prices. Just stick with whatever's on the carts. Also sometimes they bring out larger dishes of veggies or bbq pork. Those also are not 2 bucks. You can learn that the hard way or you can listen to my review.
Good siu mai, good har gao, good shrimp rice wraps (don't know how to say it in canto). Still looking for the best dim sum restaurant though, but for now this place will do!
2.5 Stars.
The service does suck because they are almost always under staff. However, the food is inexpensive and the quality is just alright. The fat noodles are really oily, so I would avoid that and buy it somewhere around Clement. However, I do like their mango pudding.
Note: I usually dine upstairs, so I'm not sure how the service is downstairs.
Through a friend's recommendation, I invited my out of town guests to Tong Palace for Dim Sum. Were we disappointed! The floor was dirty and we were seated at a table where the soy sauce containers and table clothes were visibly overused. After ordering the shrimp dumplings, my friend wanted a second but was yelled at by the cart server who directed us to order from the menu. It caused such a scene that I had to repeatedly apologize to my guests for the way we were treated.
Now, take into account that all this happened five minutes into our meal. My other guests were so stunned by the spectacle that they lost their jaws and appetite at the same time. We tried to move on with the conversation and to enjoy the food, but the servers never came back to refill our tea and we waited a long, long, time before getting our check--no oranges appeared in the way Helene K described.
Public humiliation aside, I thought the BBQ pork buns were fresh and soft. Otherwise, the dim sum were unimpressive. The meat at which it was used was largely fat and unevenly cooked. I also thought the fried shrimp wrapped in bean curd was unusual since it is typically steamed, and the pork ribs were not as tender as many other places we've tried. The Shanghai style pork buns came in three, and they were dry and wrinkled-- and smaller than the shrimp dumplings! The chef seems to cut corners as the rice wrapped in lotus leaf only had a smear of fatty ground pork in it.
We had a better time after we skipped dessert and took our business elsewhere. Afterward, I called my reference (A Richmond resident by the way) and told him how disappointing everything was. Now thinking of it, I wished we had walked out early instead of sitting there to endure the whole fiasco.
By the way, anyone who tries to justify the rude treatment we received is simply confirming the stereotype about Chinese restaurants and its people. Well, my mom has been a waitress for 20+ years and I've also been to plenty of Chinese and other Asian places where service is outstanding.
Repeat after me: "HELL NO, DO NOT GO THERE AND BE WRONGED LIKE DAT!"
Chinatown always beats me. Every time I've gone to Chinatown, I feel like being half-Chinese, I must have some secret knowledge. This time, I'll crack the code and find the best, most authentic restaurant. But inevitably, I find myself uncontrollably drawn to the whitest, most guailo place. (Sorry if that's offensive--I once used the word "guailo" in front of a Chinese grad student and he looked shocked. Being pretty much a guailo, I didn't know the word was any worse than "gringo.") And then, once I'm inside, I forget every Chinese food name I ever knew. I find myself saying in my most Yankee intonations things like, "I will take your finest steamed barbecue pork buns, good sir."
Anyway, I found Tong Palace by accident. My family--including the Chinese half of the family--was in town for my graduation and I wanted to show off my San Francisco knowledge by suggesting a place for dim sum. I searched "dim sum" on yelp and gave my family the address of a place in the Richmond without realizing it was for a take-out place which happened to be a few doors down from Tong Palace.
It was a lucky mistake. Tong Palace has the best, most fresh dim sum I've had in the Bay Area. I think it's much better than the super-popular Koi Palace. The restaurant is small enough that the dim sum platters and carts they bring around really are stocked with dishes straight out of the kitchen, but big enough that I've never had to wait for a table. (That definitely beats the sometimes two hour wait at Koi Palace). Try the char siu bao (steamed barbecue pork bun) and the don tots (custard tarts). Oh, and the Chinese side of my family was impressed, too--they might have a little more credibility than me. Like most dim sum, it's also extremely cheap.
As an added plus, you don't have to deal with the crowds or parking situation of Chinatown. So, fine, it's a draw for now, Chinatown . . .
OK! Has anyone else come to the conclusion that SF Chinese food is just plain terrible? If you want great Chinese food all you have to do is head 15 minutes south into Daly City or even Millbrae and the change is drastic.
Anyways, my parents made me eat here because Chinese food in the City gives them nostalgic memories of their youth. Eh.. why not give it a shot? YEAH.. big mistake.
Dim Sum here is mediocre at best. They force things onto your table even though you don't want it. The best part of the meal? The price!
Worth it? NO
Here is an example: They advertise 2 surf clams for $11.99 which is a hell of a deal since you usually get ONE surf clam for that same price. I was hungry and fortunately they were fast and the plate came out with a LARGE PILE of clams!!
NOT!! - under a thin veil of clam was a huge crap pile of bean sprouts. If I wanted a pile of bean sprouts I'd go get some pho for half the price!
http://www.yelp.com/bi...
Like to be gypped for mediocre food? OK - come here.
P.S. R&G lounge in Chinatown is still good
We came here to eat Thanksgiving dinner actually. Yea, we don't cook! The place was practically empty.. There was two big tables taken and just a couple small tables with families.
The food here is actually not bad. From the looks of it, it doesn't compare to KOI but to me, their food is actually comparable to them. For $98, we got a shit load of food! Maybe 8-9 plates? HUGE PLATES! Got some BBQ appetizer, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp and calamari, oysters, soup, dessert! Very good deal. The only thing is that the BBQ appetizer had some sliced BBQ pork that was obviously not done cooking. There was still blood coming out. GROSSSSS. But everything else was on point. Very good and would probably recommend people coming here for dinner!
EW EW EW!!! Don't let the $2.00 small, medium and large dishes on Monday-Friday fool you because it sure did fool me! I've been craving dim sum for a while now and my bf and I finally decided to go. Perhaps it was because we arrived at about 1pm that made the food so utterly cold and disgusting? Or was it because this restaurant just doesn't give a fiddlers hoot about their food?
There was no wait, which of course is always awesome... HOWEVER, when we got there, the hostess downstairs told us to go upstairs, while mumbling to himself. Bf and I didn't know what he was saying so we walked upstairs. When we got there, we had to wait about 3 minutes before anyone acknowledged us and seated us... of course mumbling some random crap in Chingalish (chinese and english). We were seated and then the tea came.
So since it was pretty late for dim sum, there wasn't much circulating. We got chicken feet and shrimp dumpling first. The color of the chicken feet didn't look too appetizing, but I told myself maybe it'll taste better than it looks! Bite into it... and it's barely even warm. Gross. No, it didn't taste any better than it looked. Tried the shrimp dumpling and it just didn't taste good. And again, it's barely warm. You know how your food is supposed to be STEAMING HOT and you have to wait at least 2 minutes before you can manage to put the food into your mouth when you have dim sum? This WAS NOT the case.
After we got these two dishes, the server asked me what else I wanted. I wasn't too sure what I wanted because this is only the second time my bf has had dim sum. I told her I wanted beef balls, beef rice noodles, and tripe. The tripe was COLD and bland. The beef ball was COLD. And the rice noodle was COLD. Are you catching my drift here? I also ordered minced meat dumpling and when it finally came.... OMG. One of them had a bite indentation on it! SOMEONE TOOK A BITE FROM IT!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF?!?! You swear I would eat that crap! So we flagged a worker over and I said "what the hell is this shit? Someone bite this!" and hold the dumpling up. In his defense he said that it must have just been messed up. UM, NO! God, I wish I took a picture of it! He obviously knew someone took a bite of it and said he'll take it off the bill... WITHOUT AN APOLOGY.
Our bill was only about $13.00, which was awesome. But with COLD FOOD and being served food that had been BITTEN by someone is just unacceptable. This place is disgusting. DO NOT COME HERE!!!!!
Ok, so I did not lie and went right after my previous review. A few updates... It was PACKED on a Monday at 1pm. There was a 45 minute wait, incompetent staff, and sparse service. But this can be remedied by ordering off the sheet of paper so they bring out exactly what you want.
I was surprised it was so packed since they raised their prices to a whopping $2 per plate. I would expect them to lose about 1/2 their business by that 12 cent jump but it was more packed than ever.
So remember, be prepared to wait if you are there close to noon and to order off the paper, not from the random cold dishes that the waitresses cannot even describe. Also, make sure that they don't pawn off "Kitchen" items on you and charge you $5 instead of $2 AND there is a $1 tea surcharge for every person in your party that is not a member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) - which consequently lost them one yellow Commie star off the flag from my previous review
You just can't beat $1.88 dim sum (M-F 9am-3pm). They have all small, medium, and large dim sum… Read more »
This palace is okay..the price is really cheap s, m, l $2.00...The service was great and their was no wait which is a plus......i guess you get what you pay for...
Tong Palace might be inexpensive, but the service still sucks. By the time the food arrived, the majority was cold. They bring out the steamer stacks from the kitchen, and them set them on a table from which the waitresses then take out piecemeal. So no "hot and fresh, straight from the kitchen to your table dim sum" is to be had. Also, very little selection. Everyone seemed to be hawking deserts. We had to order from the kitchen. Might be good if you go with a large Chinese family so you get some attention, but otherwise, bleh. Not worth the aggravation.
Tip: Better dim sum on Geary a few blocks away.
Good dim sum, terrible service. Friends raved and took us...We had to ask for a dish seven times,… Read more »
I came here for dim sum and the price of each item was 2 dollars.
The food here is okay. The price is less than most places. Service is a little slow and inside seemed a little cramp. Even though there were plenty of seats.
Okay for some causal eat.
decent dim sum, especially considering the prices on weekdays. it's something like 2 bucks for most of their cart dishes.
there's a big dining area, so any waiting on the weekends is pretty quick.
i used to think this was one of the better dim sum places in the city. after branching out a bit more i found that i became pretty disappointed in tong palace. try hong kong seafood in the sunset, or, if you're driving that far anyways, head to koi palace in daly city. definitely worth the transit in my opinion.
Overall a meh experience for me. The place looked promising but the general busyness inside but I'm now guessing it's because the people in there lived in walking distance and didn't have tons of options. As yelpers in the know, know, good dim sum in San Francisco abounds.
While I wasn't expecting anything fancy, I kind of was hoping for soy sauce jars that weren't sticky, and also for waitstaff to not be setting up and breaking down big tables while we were eating (around 1:30pm, not too late in the day?).
Anyway, I'd be willing to settle for those minor things if the actual dim sum was generously tasty. Out of the steame dumplings, Chinese broccoli, fried crab balls and a few other items we ordered, I'd say the only item that stood out was the Shanghai Dumplings, and those were at best just pretty good.
I will say that we ordered a bunch of stuff and left with a $25 bill, so I suppose you get what you pay for in cases like this.
I've been to Tong Palace a number of times for dim sum.... I'm giving it two stars because in the past I have not had any problems until now. I mean the food is not bad, not great, but certainly not the worst.
That being said.... HAIR FOUND IN HAR GOW!!!! Short black hair sticking out of bottom of piece of har gow!!!!
When I told the waiter he took it to the other waitpersons and gawked as if it was going to miraculously disappear and he could put this painful nightmare behind him, alas it did not. After a while he then tried to make up for the traumatic incident by giving us a second order of har gow I told him I couldn't eat it because I was in the process of trying to keep my food down after this harrowing experience and asked him to not charge me for the original order.... he decided not to hear me. I had to ask three times before he scratched off the charge.
When I tried to give the manager feedback on my experience he decided he couldn't understand English.... I'm Asian, I get this game.... I stood my ground and he finally apologized. Ten hours later and I'm still not over the event, somehow an apology doesn't seem enough.
My mom and I use to always talk about going out to dim sum but we never actually did it until now.
Let's just say that it was a fun experience. No really, it was. Since my mom and I aren't Chinese (she's Korean but for some reason, commonly mistaken for Chinese) we just stared dumbly and pointed whenever a server walked by with a tray or cart filled with delicious looking food, while hoping that someone would take pity on us and explain things in English. One lady was really nice because whenever she came by, she would set the tray down and explain what she had the best she could. Though, I felt a bit bad because I felt like I was inconveniencing them. It was pretty busy. But luckily, we were nowhere near as rude as some loud ass white dude in the middle of the restaurant who felt it necessary to scream his conversation to his friend. Daaaamn dude. That ain't cool.
$1.88 for the small, medium, and large plates was a great price. A bit cheaper than the place next door. $4.75 for the other items wasn't too bad either. The chow mein and the flat rice noodle dish were good, but a tad too oily. That's when my mom chided me for asking for green tea instead of black tea. ("YAH!. YOU DRINK BLACK TEA WITH OILY FOOD. NOT GREEN. REMEMBER THAT. aigo!"). The shrimp dumplings were my favorite. The outer wrapper was thin and inside there were, not one but TWO pieces of whole shrimp. That's a winner right there. We also had a plate of char siu and a small plate of lotus seed paste buns.
Next time, I'll brush up on my knowledge of dim sum and come back. Overall, I'd give this place 4 stars but I took off 1 star for the unclean table we were given.
Came here on a couple of occassions and the food here isn't bad, but it isnt' great either, it's just okay for me. I'll eat whatevers on the plate. No complaints just average Chinese food in the city. However, if I were to state one improvement it would be to have a little more flavor in some of the dishes. Sometimes the dishes would look so tasty and greasy, but when you bite into it, it's just greasy, but lacks some taste. So overall, this place is okay. I'd like to try out the dim sum one day.
Recommended Dishes: (dishes are shown in pictures)
- Cold Appetizer plate
- Honey Walnut Prawns
- Beef with Scallops over Snap Peas
The quality of the dim sum is very good. The assortment however sucked. At least it did the one time I went which was yesterday morning. At 11 am the dim sum assortment was just standard. Nothing unique, kind of boring. I don't want to eat the same dishes over and over.
We should've ordered a couple of dishes ahead of time, clay pot (mom says it's really good here) and a noodle dish of some sort. We decided to hang in there and wait and see what the kitchen would crank out.
On a side note, I noticed a guy who was all up in the dim sum cart looking at every single tray. I commented on how pushy that was. Mom mentioned that it was a very Hong Kong thing to do. Really? Oh yes, at the tea houses there a lot of diners literally wait near the kitchen with their stamp cards and ambush the carts on the way out, snapping up everything before anyone else has had the chance. Whoa.
Walking down Clement in search of food... (well, the girls and G were looking for food, I was distracted by import DVDs, toys, and this cute college girl!), we came across Tong Palace! CV had pointed out way too many places, but our previously uncertain lunch plans found an aim... DIM SUM!!
We proceeded upstairs to a table in the deceptively large room; who'd have thought the place would be so big?
I sat at the table by myself for a moment, minding the ladie's belongings when it was suddenly very busy; Satin suit vests and trays of bamboo steamers everywhere! I sunk in my seat like a turtle retreats into its shell...
"...[something something]", the server says, tilting a tray to show me its contents.
"Um, well... er... what is that? I don't... Not yet?", I cower meekly.
"... [something something]", another server would ask, another tray in hand.
"Eh, my friends... ordering... doing... they will...", I fumble.
"...s'good,youtry", she says, insistent, bamboo container inches from my face.
Thankfully, Celia took charge...
A flurry of calling over servers, requesting this and that, translating dishes names/contents, waving off common/filler/uninteresting dishes...
The food wasn't bad... not great... but not bad.
Fun, fed, and full... our tab, dotted with a dozen or so little red stamps, came out to about $27.
________________________________________
Chicken feet. Its like eating just the wingy part of the wing.
Not the drumette. Not the piece next to the drumette.
The wingy part. Its like eating that. Only not.
Yeah, only not.
We went to a wedding banquet here on Saturday night and what a disappointment it was. We've been here plenty of times and have used this restaurant for Red Egg & Ginger parties as well as wedding banquets, but this one was a real disappointment. The service was really, really slow. Sometimes at wedding banquets, they get the food out really fast - bam, bam, bam! But this one was excruciatingly slow. And then the food just wasn't good. The soup was bland, the fried rice had no taste, the peking duck looked old. It just wasn't up to par.
We used to go here all the time when I was younger, but now we rarely do. My sister rented out the… Read more »
Ugh, I've come here several times and, while the service has always been iffy, our experience on Saturday was truly horrendous. I've been frequenting dim sum joints since before I could even eat solid food. I know that service is something that you sacrifice in good restaurants but I will not be coming again because the food is not good enough to make up for the sucky wait staff.
$1.88
That's all you need to know. On Mondays through Fridays from 9 am to 3 pm, they have $1.88 dim sum plates - small, medium, or large.
And that pretty much explains why you found me here on a Friday afternoon. The family is celebrating my nephew's graduation from preschool (it's a big deal these days), and we all gather here on Clement. There are no more big tables left for our large family, but not to worry, ample seating upstairs.
We got the standard dim sum variety - har gow (shrimp dumpling), shumai (pork dumpling), cheurng fun (ribbon rice noodles wrapped around beef or shrimp - we got both), Chinese doughnut wrapped in ribbon rice noodle (you have to ask for this one - special order), beef tripe, beef ball, chicken feet, radish cake, egg custard buns (not that great, blah), steamed cha see bao (pork buns), deep fried dumpling thing with meat, etc.
The little carts didn't come by enough and we had to ask them to bring more stuff around. Unfortunately, they always brought the stuff we already had or the stuff we didn't want. No desserts came by at all.
Overall, nothing really special about this place. It's cheap and that's about it. I guess it works if you just want some dim sum.
One of the few hole in wall dim sum houses left in San Francisco. This was how dim sum is suppose to be served. Prices are very reasonable and food is decent. 1.88 per dim sum...............you really can't go wrong. Never order the preset dinner specials............those are usually for non asian clients. If you want the preset menus then I would recommend Panda Express in Stonestown. Must order........... Salt and pepper pork, walnut shrimp, westlake soup, yerng chow friend rice, any of the clay pots.
Remember............keep an open mind and don't expect this place to be like Koi Palace Restaurant. It's not. It's a just good down to earth chinese soul food.
Before I go on with any more reviews, I would just like to make an explanation about how I rate restaurants.
Some may have noticed how I tend to give more 3-stars than any other kind of rating. To me, I feel like "3 stars" means this: it's a good, decent place, but nothing really made me feel super-excited yet nothing made me feel really annoyed/turned off. The place essentially made me feel "A-OK"; not super, but not crappy either. Also...some places may impress me a lot, but they may not be "4-star" worthy just yet.
I hope my explanation is reasonable. Now, to the actual review....
My friend and I sauntered over to Tong's Palace after realizing that we were too hungry to wait for a table at My Tofu House. Upon examining the menu from the outside, I decided we would give Tong's Palace a try.
The place was filled with Chinese/Chinese-Americans, which was comforting and the initial "seal of approval". There were two menus (I'm not sure why--it seemed like one was more aimed towards people who wanted to read Chinese rather than English, but both menus were bilingual anyway...); my friend and I decided on some Chinese broccoli (guylan) with oyster sauce; beef with bitter melon; and spare rib & chinese sausage clay pot rice.
All of the food was nostalgic for the both of us; it was our type of "comfort" food. My friend watched in innocent amazement when the server brought out the clay pot rice and scooped out the meat and mixed in the soy sauce. It was cute to watch the reaction. Oranges were served at the end of the meal, which gave the whole experience something more authentic (forget those fortune cookies!).
It was amusing watching how slippery the guylan was for the both of us, though. I feel like, when restaurants use the plastic chopsticks, they are pretty much playing a mean joke on us by giving us slippery vegetables that cannot be grasped with plastic chopsticks. I think after awhile my friend gave up on trying to grasp the guylan with the chopsticks and ate the stalk with his hands, haha.
Hmm..service-wise, they were okay. We had to do it "Asian-style" and flagged down the servers when we were ready to order/pick up the bill. It also took a little time for the food to come out, but it was all fresh and hot when served.
Neat little place for the most part; I noticed on their sign that they also do dim sum (well, naturally). Maybe when I actually have a free weekend morning I will head over and try out their dim sum, too.
This is the first dim sum i've ever had and I went with my asian friend.
BEST BEAN CURD! the bean curd had the perfect texture combination of soft and crunchy and warm on the belly...its what the monk's eat
pan fried crispy noodles- although slightly too oily, you can't argue with the flavore and texture which is al dente really thin and fried yummm
pork ribs-- omg omg omg. thats all i can say
pork buns- i mean come on, what's not to like...
The only problem with this place is that I tend to feel a bit sick to my stomach after and i'm so full i'm going to burst, but then a few hours later i'm ravenous again. so its a false fulness.
all in all its best dim sum i've been to yet
wait staff---annoying b/c they favor certain tables and give them the freshest choices.
It bothered me that they would come to our table last, b/c all the good stuff would be gone....but love love this place
Not too bad and not too good. Prices on the weekdays are pretty good deal. The dim sum is not really special but I really like their course meals. It's cheap and good and it fills. But at times, I get some bad attitude from the waiters.
Setting: Downstairs is pretty typical Chinese restaurant. Nothing too special. They do have TVs, and a cool deco of a ship carved out of what looks like granite. Nice touch. Upstairs is for banquets. Pretty small-ish for a banquet, but very nice, very clean. Makes for an intimate party. TVs everywhere too for slide shows and such. Nice chandelier in the middle of the room.
Food: I'm a little biased since this is where I'm gonna have my wedding banquet. :) We ordered some dishes from the banquet menu, and they were delish. My favorite vegetable (pronounced dau-myu) is very yummy. Decent prices as well. Here's hoping the food stays yummy by banquet time! :)
Service: Awesome folks, especially the banquet manager. Very very nice. Very easy to talk to these people, easy to work with. Definitely a plus!
Review update to come after wedding day!
We went to this dim sum place for over several years. The service is very good and the place is quiet large, having two floor makes waiting very short if you had to.The price is very reasonable about $50.00 for 6. the food was the basic dim sum, haw gau, sil my, and cha sew bow sorry for the spelling, it was good to very good I had better and I had worst, overall
I would go back again the staff did a good job.
Neighborhood: Inner Richmond
Category: Dim Sum
Neighborhood: Inner Richmond
Category: Dim Sum
Neighborhood: Outer Richmond
Category: Dim Sum
Neighborhood: Outer Richmond
Category: Dim Sum
Neighborhood: Inner Richmond
Category: Dim Sum
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